The 11th OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Rural Development Conference was held in Edinburgh on 9-12 April 2018. Prior to the main conference, a series of interactive sessions, led by the European Network for Rural Development, showcased projects and approaches already launched by rural communities to face 21st...

The EU plans to spend on rural development policy nearly 100 billion euro for the period 2014-2020 through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). An objective of the EU strategic framework for 2014-2020 was to focus more on results. However, efforts to achieve this faced the perennial problem...

The EAFRD holds a budget of €96.4 billion and is available for co-financing rural development projects in the 27 EU Member States. Governed by Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005, the EAFRD is focused on three main types of rural development activities. These are: • Improving the competitiveness of agriculture and forestry;...

European tastes are changing and so must farms, therefore we need to support a transition away from industrial animal farming

In the context of the recent recolonization of many European areas by large carnivores, the European Parliament has commissioned a study presenting the state of play in EU Member States. The study gathers the most recent data available on large carnivores’ populations in the EU’s Member States, evaluates the impact...

International treaties and conventions encourage national governments to recognize, protect, and promote traditional knowledge, including traditional agroecological knowledge. Following this mandate, a multidisciplinary team of Spanish scientists from 7 universities and research centers have worked together with the Spanish seed network ‘Red de Semillas: Resembrando e Intercambiando’ to develop CONECT-e....

New project – OK-Net EcoFeed – aims at helping organic pig and poultry farmers in achieving the goal of 100% use of organic and regional feed. A key objective of organic farming is that animals are fed with feed produced at or near the farm. Yet, this is difficult to achieve...

On Thursday 19 July 2018, the Romanian President signed the decree passing the Mountain Law. Long awaited by the Romanian mountain communities, the law comes to regulate the ways to protect and develop the mountain area in an inclusive and sustainable manner, through: valorizing the human and natural resources, increasing the...

EIP-AGRI Operational Groups are innovative projects that aim to find practical solutions to problems or opportunities which European farmers and foresters are currently facing. More than 3200 are planned by national and regional Rural Development Programmes for the period 2014-2020. Operational Groups can benefit from networking and collaborating with organisations...

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has continuously demonstrated within its work that gender equality is not simply a matter of human rights, but is key to eliminating poverty and hunger. It is only by closing the gender gap that sustainable agriculture and rural development can...

ERSAF, the Italian regional agency for agriculture and forestry services, who has been collaborating with Euromontana for many years for the promotion and valorisation of mountain products, started an experimental project, with the Lombardy Region, to implement the use of the optional quality scheme for “mountain products” in some of its...

Agriculture and food industry sectors have a major importance for the Moldovan economy. The Republic of Moldova has one of the highest share of rural population among the countries in Europe and Central Asia, and its agriculture sector significantly contributes to the country’s gross domestic product. The Food and Agriculture...

Agroecological symbiosis (AES) is a new, transformative model for adaptive and resilient localized food production and consumption. An AES is formed by farms, small and medium-scale food processors, and bioenergy producers working as one system, in close proximity to each other. The physical proximity is dictated by the ecological necessity...

The agricultural holdings without legal status, largely overlapping the rural population’s households and providing content to the individual households, namely the peasant households, preserve the continuity of the vernacular village in terms of the community land and in demographic terms, through the families living in the villages, whose main occupation...

SIMRA has just released its third brochure collecting examples of social innovation in marginalised rural areas in the Balkan peninsula. The focus of the SIMRA project is on the European Union and the Mediterranean area, including the Balkan Peninsula in South-East Europe which includes both countries which are Member States of...

The benefits of cooperation and opportunities for small- and medium-sized dairy enterprises topped the agenda of the Second Caucasus Dairy Congress held in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, today. The event, supported by the European Union and Georgia’s Ministry of Agriculture, was the latest effort by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development...

FAO’s Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Europe and Central Asia 2018 (Regional SOFI 2018 in ECA) describes the current situation vis-à-vis SDG 2 in countries of the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. It focuses in particular on the countries’ status in relation to SDG Target 2.1...

Small-scale agroecological and organic farming systems require appropriate machinery and technologies, and a change of paradigm in the way they are conceived, produced, sold and patented. The mainstream agricultural model has led to machines that are getting increasingly bigger and more expensive and complicated, and thus inaccessible for many farmers...

n the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, aquaculture is an active and growing sector which plays a major role in achieving food security, employment and economic development while reducing the dependence on often overexploited wild stocks. According to some national aquaculture strategies, the production in Mediterranean and Black Sea riparian...

Agritourism offers farmers the possibility of diversifying and generating additional income through on-farm touristic activities in order to help supplementing their low agricultural income. This helps to maintain the viability of active farms and rural communities. The more general understanding of agritourism states that agritourism activities support and promote agricultural...